I have been participating in a public discussion chat room where anyone can start a thread about any subject. There are many threads about politics, sex, race, and a ton about various religions. As you can guess, there are several about "christians" and who Christ actually is.
One that I found particiularly interesting discussed why Christians acted "ugly" toward others. It started talking about sinful nature, the devil, etc. but it broke down into a challenging discussion between professed Christians and those who do not believe (one athesit and one wiccan, in particular).
After "watching from the sidelines" so to speak for several days, I had to inject a question to challenge both sides. My question was: is it easy to be a Christian?
I got a response from the wiccan that it was easy. Just believe in the "big man upstairs" and everything will be just fine. A Christian said it was easy and hard at the same time. A professed non-believer stated that believing and following were different. Toward that end, here is my response and explanation:
Excellent post.You brought up two very important aspects in Christian theology: belief and following.I would agree that it is easy to believe. James 2:19 says that demons believe in God, "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!" During His ministry on earth, many demons testified about the "who" Jesus was.Following Jesus becomes more difficult. Christ said that it is difficult to follow Him.In Matthew 16, Jesus states:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples,“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."Has anyone ever tried to deny "himself"? You must be willing to give up everything for Christ. Not that Jesus will require you to give up everything, but He might; and to be a true believer you have to be obedient out of your love for Him.Not only that, you have to take up your cross daily. Killing yourself, your nature and leaning wholly on Jesus. You will have to suffer to be a Christian.Christ also speaks of the "narrow gate" that one will pass through into life.Believing = easy. Following = hard. The reason, I feel, that many Christians act ugly is that we fall into the trap of not denying ourselves and not taking up our cross daily. We get so caught up in being a Christian that we don't focus on Christ.My prayer is that those who have been called to be a Christian will be a follower of Christ: A TRUE follower of Christ.
As you can see, a thread like that would challenge many notions of what professed Christians believe. Do we as the church teach and preach the truth about how hard it is to follow Christ? Are we candy-coating the truth too much? Do we try to convince people more then allow God's spirit to work?
My guess would be as a whole the answer would be yes. It is sad, but true.
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Excellent remarks. I'm not sure who posted this, as it's listed under Word of Truth, but I couldn't have summed it up better. You expressed thoughts similar to John MacArthur in both his book and teaching series "Hard to Believe: The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus." Here's how I can best sum up the Christian life in relation to the free offer of forgiveness of sin in the gospel contrasted with the giving up of one's life: becoming saved (justification) is easy; being saved (sanctification) is difficult. Salvation is free, but it may cost you everything. Only in denying ourselves do we find ourselves (Luke 9:24).
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